and we begin this hour with the push to identify cases of the omicron variant across the united states, as new cases crop up. the biden administration released a new strategy to fight covid in the coming months. a big part of that requiring insurance companies to reimburse the cost of at-home tests. joining me now with more is nbc news correspondent allison barber live from illinois, also with us, jonathan lemeyer and the host of way too early on msnbc. allison, let me start with you. you re one of the biggest labs mass producing covid tests. can people be confidence that these tests will work if they have the omicron variant? reporter: the short answer is yes. there are labs all over this place. this is one of many labs that deals with testing different covid samples. these machines usually work to get information on antibodies,